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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Yarn Drama

I had mentioned a few days ago that I was working on some Baby Yoga Pants. I'm actually following the pattern for Baby Denim Drawstring Pants in Last Minute Knitted Gifts (canyoutell I love this book?), but I'm making them in black Nashua Creative Focus Cotton instead of Rowan Denim, and I changed the bottoms of the legs from seed stitch cuffs to little flares. I think they'll be great for a hip and modern baby (whether boy or girl) with a very hip and modern Mommy (who I know practices yoga).

So I bought this Nashua cotton at the Imagiknit sale in May, having grabbed three skeins for a very good price. It took me almost a full skein to finish one leg, so I started a second skein for the second leg so I wouldn't have to join new yarn half way up. That's when things got funny. I noticed that the yarn coming out of skein #2 was quite a bit smoother and shinier than the yarn from skein #1. Thinking I was just going crazy, I kept knitting. But after several rows I realized that the second leg was SMALLER than the first! Not tremendously so, but there was definitely a difference. I checked and rechecked the labels, I counted how many stitches per inch I was getting, and lo and behold! I had two skeins of identical yarn in the same weight, the same color, and the same dye lot, with DIFFERENT GAUGES!

Can you tell? The one on the right is skein #1. After further inspection, it seems that they're the same, but skein #1 is...fuzzier. So strange. Has this ever happened to anyone else? Did Nashua just make a mistake in labeling the yarn? Or did something happen to it?

It's not too big a deal -- the size of leg made with the smaller gauge yarn is actually perfect. And luckily, my skein #3 of this yarn was not another weird freak and was identical to #2. So I ripped out the first leg and will use the fuzzier skein #1 yarn in the waist band area and I don't think it will be noticeable.